Lyon, France (July 6, 2020)—French live sound company Eurosono recently provided audio for the annual Trophies of Enterprise event in Lyon’s Halle Tony Garnier arena. The awards show, held by the Progrès daily newspaper and CPME, an organization supporting small businesses in the region, brought together thousands to honor businesses from the area.
The venue itself has a long and storied history, having originally been a slaughterhouse and market before its conversion in 1988 into a concert venue, staging everything from large gigs to corporate events. Eurosono’s events director and head of Tech and Live services, Mathieu Aufort, noted, “The brief at this event was to cover an audience of 3,000 people without installing an army of speakers. The system needed to be discreet, as this was an event rather than a performance or show. We needed a system that was good in terms of weight and visibility, while still fulfilling all the sound requirements of the situation.”
N-Ray Rolls Out at Kassel Festival
As it turned out, the company used the event as an opportunity to field its new N-Ray system from Coda Audio. Eurosono was involved last year in beta testing the system for Coda, providing real-world feedback to Coda Audio. Having also attended Coda’s pre-launch event of the system in September, 2019, Eurosono purchased a system. Now the Trophies of Enterprise provided a chance to put it to work. Front of house engineer for the event, Félix Dutrève, recalled, “The shape and size of the Tony Garnier required a very efficient system, as I had to cater for 45 meters in depth and 30 meters in length. I covered the stalls with just 12 speakers per side, which is really quite a small number.”
The system comprised 12 x N-RAY per side with 8 x SCV-F on the ground. A further 8 x HOPS-8 were used as front fill to cover the stalls up to the front row, with a half-dozen N-APS as side fills. Dutrève recalled, “My first impression when I listened to it was the range, for a start. We found ourselves at the top of the stalls more than forty-five meters away and went, ‘oh wow; yeah, that works!’ There’s a real vertical and horizontal consistency; when we moved from right to left, the sound stayed consistent, the same—it doesn’t move. There was a homogeneity across the whole distance which is very good.”
Coda Audio • www.codaaudio.com
